The bats come alive

By: Will Vandervort

It appears the Tiger that was lurking in the weeds for better than half
the college baseball season has now started to pounce on its prey.

That Tiger of course is the Clemson baseball team which just completed an
impressive two game sweep of Western Carolina with a 13-2 win last night
at Doug Kingsmore Stadium. In all, Clemson outscored the Catamounts 24-3
in the two games combined and have now won four straight.

Keep in mind this is the same Western Carolina team that took two of three
games from then No. 24 Southern Cal in Los Angeles earlier in the season
and was 20-12 coming into the series.

During the Tigers four-game winning streak, which included two wins over a
top five Miami team last weekend, the y have scored 42 runs off 49 hits.
It's the kind of consistency the team was missing earlier in the year.

Since the first day of spring on March 21, Clemson has scored five or more
runs 15 times, seven or more runs 11 times and eight or more runs seven
times.

Ben Paulsen has been solid at the plate all season, but finally guys like
Kyle Parker and Jeff Schaus are starting to heat up at the same time.
Parker went 7-for-8 with a homer, six RBIs, and five runs in the two
games, while Paulsen added four hits, and Schaus had three. Wilson Boyd,
who was just inserted in to the lineup last week following injury, totaled
three hits and six RBIs.

Over the last 10 games, Clemson has scored at least six runs in every one
and is averaging 8.7 runs, while posting a 7-3 record during that stretch.

And who says scoring doesn't help pitching? The Tigers' pitching staff had
a 1.50 ERA and 25 strikeouts against only three walks in the Western
Carolina series and in the second game against Miami, freshman Chris Dwyer
had a complete game two-hitter against the Hurricanes. The Tigers won that
game 9-1.

Clemson (25-12, 11-7 ACC) should continue the hitting this weekend as it
faces a Virginia Tech pitching staff that has a 5.20 ERA collectively.
Though the Hokies have won four straight ACC games and are 22-12 overall,
the No. 18 Tigers have a solid chance to continue their current climb in
the ACC standings.

Clemson is currently in first place in the Atlantic Division and is in
second place overall behind Georgia Tech (10-5-1). The Tigers are 11-1
against Virginia Tech since the Hokies joined the ACC and have won five
straight in Blacksburg, the site of the weekend series.

Can they keep it up? I guess we will see. But you have to like their
chances as they try to continue that momentum before heading into next
week's schedule which will have Coast Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia
Tech on the docket.